


who possesses the possessor?

by threegee



Category: Coriolanus - Shakespeare
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-03
Packaged: 2017-12-22 06:09:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/909826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/threegee/pseuds/threegee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Come, let’s away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,<br/>Thou art poor’st of all; then shortly art thou mine."</p>
            </blockquote>





	who possesses the possessor?

**Author's Note:**

> wrote this nearly a month ago and decided i wanted it here. still a little rough around the edges, but hey, so is caius.
> 
> homage to the bard from stratford, of course. you should watch the ralph fiennes film version.

antium is a broken city, a hollowed city, one third the size of rome and three times as bleak.

 

but in the streets ragged children run and skip, tired women gossip on their way home, aching soldiers muster for drills.

if martius weren’t so hollow himself he might find joy in that.

the volscii are still barbarians, of course, since they are not of the correct side.

this is what he was raised to know;

this is what he was raised to fight.

 

the gods demand full sacrifice of will for the power to conquer lands and men

_his mother demanded full sacrifice of self_

 

in antium there are fewer temples and almost no priests.   there is nowhere to worship mars but out in the open, under the canopy of nox, goddess of the night.   anyone who comes across his camp can see martius prostrate himself in the name of duty, in the name of fealty, in the name of honor.

(better out in the open — vulnerable and shaking and defiant — than still in rome, choked on all sides by liars and beggars and insects and the foul stench of the tribunes’ poison)

he will not rule, he will never rule, he cannot rule -- that his mother and his commander could expect it of him he will _never_ accept.

 

martius was trained to slaughter and sacrifice, to maim and wound and flatten and break.  those who flatter peasant egos use tongues more slippery than oil, winding them around and around and yanking tightly, holding a man down.   martius was trained to splice those tongues and set them aflame.

 

here in antium there are no politicians.  here in antium there are no grasping word-thieves, drunk on false illusions of power.   here in antium there are no speeches, no markets, no pedestals on which to stand and be judged by those not fit to lick his shoes.

(here in antium there is no mother to dress and massage the wounds, here in antium there is no bosom friend to strategize alongside, here in antium there is no son to carry banners and shoulder infant burdens.)

here in antium there is a worn populace whose fathers and brothers and cousins and sons make up their own army and defend their own souls, each of whom shows in their scars and their battered armor that they know of what it is to worship mars, to honor vulcan.

 

here in antium, somewhere, is the one man who knows better than any the strange twist of humiliation and dishonor and contempt and pride of being banished from one’s own country;

the man who was the last to look him in the eye and see truth and give it back;

the man who does not beg for scraps or for glory, who asks for nothing but what his own two hands can take hold of;

( _his tunic, martius remembers the feel of his hands between the leather straps and the breastplate and the tunic_ )

 

the man whose heart sings the battle cries that even the deaf can feel

the man, the man, the man who does not know that he is waiting for martius

for the gift that martius is about to lay at his threshold, in front of his army, at his feet.

 

martius left rome not in haste but with haught stare.  he brings with him nothing but blade and shield and armor.

 

and self.

he brings to the volscii ( _to aufidius)_ himself.


End file.
